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Hello again. Well, I’ve had a good time reading all of those pre-release reports and Extended musings throughout the week. With over 22 new websites in my Favorites folder, at about 3-4 new articles per site a day, I’d say I’ve read about 65-80 articles this week.

You know, there are some really nice sites out on the web that not many people know about. Like everyone else, I’ve always had two or three magic sites that I visit—if they linked to other sites I might check out the article if it sounded interesting. Now that I’ve jumped out of my little pond I’ve seen all that the world has to offer and I must say it’s not bad.

I’ve also had the chance to work on my filtering system. Last week I explained how the grading scale works, this week I’ve constructed a means of reading and organizing over sixty articles into something seemingly manageable. (Next week I take over the WORLD) The new process keeps me from getting my eyes glued to the computer screen like a tongue on a frozen pole, and it frees up some time for me to play Utopia online. One thing I did notice from last week is that my links are not being hyper and all. If I’ve gained your trust since my last article then you won’t be disappointed and you’ll simply cut-n-paste the link to your address bar.

I began to wonder this weekend: Will my articles only be read by those people who write articles themselves? Would anyone else want to read this column—other than to see if they are on the list? It is not my intention for this series to become an awards show. The real purpose behind creating this animal was that I wanted you to be able to go to one article and find out one person’s opinion about what he thought of all the “life stories” of the week. You see, we live in a pick-n-choose world. We really do. What would you have on your menu today? We pick-n-choose our religion, our politics, and even our behavior. I just wanted to offer the public a chance to pick-n-choose from a narrower field of literature. If it is not seen as that…then, in the immortal words of Vonnegut, “so it goes”.

Before I get started with the festivities this week I’d like to share a few words from my inbox. One point that I retract from last week’s bottom five is my comparison of Sean McKeown’s article to those of his premium brethren over at Brainburst. Seeing as that I’ve never read anything from the premium section, (although I received an offer from Chedy to put the section up for contention in this column—what do you think?) I had no basis on which to make a comparison between the two. After talking with Chedy, I’ve been told that Brainburst only pays for their authors to write quality articles. I’ve apologized to both parties for making the link between what Sean does in his “off time” and what he does when he’s punched in.

I’ve received numerous emails from other websites wholeheartedly supporting the task I’ve taken on. I want to thank the Ferrett for sending me his personal list of magic sites to peruse through daily. Please remember to send me a line if you see an article that changed your life; I’m always so busy and I don’t want to miss a good one.

Unfortunately I received letters from people who just didn’t read what I had to say. I know we live in a pick-n-choose world, but please do justice to an author if you’re going to write to him and make a point! (i.e., read the whole article) It is NOT my intention to hurt any feelings, step on any toes, or hinder the writing drive in any person. I WANT YOU TO WRITE! Just because you show up on the bottom five for one week, doesn’t mean that I think you are loser. I want you to come back and hit me in the face with something so good I can only say one word: Testify. The only way that I can continue to do this is to be honest with myself. It can’t be personal and it’s not. If it gets to be then it’s over.

Exactly as I said last week, understand that no one site will escape the eye of scrutiny. I will remain in CONSTANT VIGILANCE as I painstakingly filter through article after article, week after grueling week. Because of this, if you find an article particularly disgusting, or surprisingly life-altering, then please, send it my way! I guess this is my way of saying to not be afraid to let me know what you think. I’ll be tagging my email address along with all of my articles, so if you want to give suggestions, then go for it.

With everything being said that needs to be said, I suppose it’s time to commence with this week’s Best of the Best.

´´Any mono black deck that ventures headlong into a tournament knowing full well that they will die to a C.O.P. or an Aegis is either downright foolish, or has stones you could crush a 1972 Ford Mustang with.´´

Ron, or by alias, Blisterguy as he seemingly prefers to be called, makes an excellent choice for an article this week as mono black makes it re-emergence to the scene due to the current metagame. Compost

er Killer” in some circles, as finding this little piece of tech was said to have shut down anything with a swamp in its casting cost. Some went so far as to splash a second color, hence defeating the purpose and definition of “mono colored” deck. But lo and behold, someone touts that the deck idea is not dead—and I happen to agree. (But really if you just want to flat out win you’d choose to Psychatog

, right?) How close is Ron to money? Well, look at Hiroki Okamoto’s deck from the 2002 Japan Nationals. Just a few cards away from a perfect match and even then who would have thought mono black would do anything? Overall, a well thought out article strategy wise—oh, and it wasn’t painful to read either.

It warms my heart to see Nate Heiss, of notorious Team CMU and Magic Word fame, writing for Star City. I’ve long been a fan of his work. Doesn’t Star City seem like the Detroit Red Wings? They’ve got a roster full of some of the most talented writers on the internet—even after losing one of their best; they continue to bring in new talent. Someone is doing something right on that end. Nate explains the cards that he likes from Judgment and basically lets us know who he is and what to expect. I’m looking forward to reading more articles by Mr. Heiss.

´´ People will put in the silliest cards, and leave some real bombs in their sideboard. So, for the purposes of this article, I want to talk a little about the process of how to build a good sealed deck.´´

I liked this article on the basis of my Bible strategy. The Bible strategy is something I always wanted to publish. There are certain types of articles that are very useful for the beginning player. I’d like to take all of those articles and put them into a single book: The Bible. This is a leather bound book of goodness, telling the beginning and expert magic player everything they need to know about the game. Trading, Sealed, Block, Standard, Extended, Vintage…all of it. Everything you ever wanted to know about strategy. Well, this article could find a nice home in the Bible. I like the way that Scott works out all of the subtleties of building a sealed deck. I noticed three steps in his Twelve Step program. We’ll see if there are nine more.

There’s a good article on Card Shark? Get outta here. Well, contrary to popular belief Card Shark does indeed have some talented writers. Kevin has just begun his writing career and already he’s starting to catch on. People are enjoying his writings because of his from-the-hip wit and real-life humor. It looks like Kevin’s articles are contagious. Since his less than dramatic entrance into the magic writing scene, his number of hits have exponentially gone nowhere but up. This week Kevin discusses a topic close to many of our hearts, our girlfriends. Now I know what you’re going to say, “Yeah right, Magic players DO NOT have girlfriends.” Well, according to the number of hits Kevin got, I guess they do. Kevin’s article acted like the light at the end of a tunnel, the prize at the end of the game. Don’t worry, there’s hope for gamers everywhere.

Mr. Anthony Alongi is simply one of the best. Perhaps it was because, I too have children, maybe it was due to the fact that I felt like I was there with Anthony all the time, or conceivably it was owed to the mist in my eyes at the end of his article. You know what? I think Anthony slipped one past us. This article isn’t about Magic at all. What?! Magic’s top article for the week and it’s not about the game of Magic? Well if you want strategy go check out Alongi’s “The Fastest Crush

in the West” over at Magic the Gathering. There was a real toss up for the number one spot this week, and both of the articles belonged to Anthony. It’s scary what this guy can do. I’ve always said that if you want to see how it’s done in this business with integrity, then make your next Friday casual.

its easy to win. If you pull the perfect hand. No, I'm not doing the math on the odds, just showing an example.”

This article was insightful. I found out myself, days after the prerelease, that because of the way the phantom creatures are worded they can become indestructible. The only real beef I had with this article was the fact that I didn’t get to see a deck list. I understand that not every article needs a deck list, but I wanted Rory to show me the next broken phantom deck or how he would approach building the deck to break Epic Struggle

? What do you do to protect yourself, what colors do you run, and what will you have to worry about? Good article Rory, but I’ve found that lately I “just need more”. Oh, and a word about the new set for other writers: The American spelling is JUDGMENT with no E.

´´ He plays weenies, I take some damage then I fact or fiction an lay tog'. The turning point in the match was when I sat down and shuffled, good game kid good game..´´

This article just didn’t do it for me. The grammar was horrendous, spelling errors abound, and his report was lacking in the information department. The only thing that was going right in this article was the deck list, but then again, Zevatog is dead, right? He tried to save some of himself at the end when he tossed around “mize” and “anti-mize”, but I’m afraid even the catchiest of catch words couldn’t save this poor beast. My advice? Give me more detail. What happened in those games and why is U/G/b a bad deck to play? I thought he was setting us up for some slick foreshadowing. What did you sideboard and how does the deck play against the field? Just…give…me…more.

“Tog, in my opinion has become a suboptimal deck to play right now in a field of higher quality decks.”

So many articles about the ‘Tog this week... First off, the article is a bit tiny. I wanted more explanation on this man’s opinion. Mike tells us why Mike Flore’s says Zevatog is dead, and he explains that Psychatog

do? Is that a Magic card? From the article: “But their has always been one way that many people have never used, and that is decking. Decking means destroying the opposing deck. and now, one combo basically does that.” Decking is cool, and by cool, I mean Totally Sweet. Decking is so sweet it makes me want to crap my pants. Another quote: “Braids decks kind of hurt, but then you could always Ghastly Demise

Okay, it’s not all that bad. Yes, the sight of an open wound makes it look worse than it is, but it can be healed. First thing you want to do is send this deck list to Quentin Martin and the boys over at Cutting-edge cards. From just looking at this thing I can tell you’re spells are too mana intensive. Time Stretch

lops off HALF of your opponent’s library, after all. Secondly, you need to wash this animal with a spell checker my man. A good dose of spell checkin’ never hurt any article. Finally, keep writing. Continue with your writing education, ask your English teacher to browse over your article, and don’t be afraid to use that dictionary.

That’s it for this week. Hopefully next week we’ll see more of those Judgment cards in action. What else can Wizards possibly do this week to get our panties in a bind?? What new author is going to amuse us with zany tales of magical adventures?

Watch those articles, because someone else is definitely watching them!

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